Door manufacturers and retailers are known to transport and sell their products in assembled form with frames and moldings. To protect the door assemblies from damage due to shipping and handling, it is common for the manufacturer or retailer to place protective guards around the outer surface, or portion thereof, of the door assemblies. One common practice, for example, is to use a combination of four protective guards, with each guard being positioned at one of the four comer regions of the door assembly. Presently, such guards are made of corrugated cardboard folded and glued into four-sided "boxes" which fit relatively loosely around the respective comer regions of the door assembly and are held in place with nylon straps. Although the cardboard guards offer a degree of protection to the door assembly as it is manipulated during shipping and handling, there are a variety of problems associated with the cardboard guards. One such problem, for example, relates to the difficulty of adequately securing the guards to the door assemblies. The presently used cardboard guards have a tendency to shift out of position or fall off entirely as the nylon straps are moved and/or loosened during shipping and handling. A factor contributing to this problem is that the nylon straps apply inward pressure to the door assembly and cannot be secured too tightly without causing the door assembly (and, more specifically, its moldings) to collapse. Other problems associated with the cardboard guards is that they offer only a limited degree of protection to the door assembly and have a tendency to rip or tear if they are grasped upon lifting or moving of the door assembly.
Consequently, there is a need for a novel door guard structure which offers a greater degree of protection than present cardboard guards and which may be securely and tightly retained about the comer regions of a door guard assembly. The present invention is directed to providing a door guard that satisfies the aforementioned needs and overcomes or at least reduces the effects of one or more of the problems set forth above.